By Simon Dresden
2/23/08
Just a handful of youngsters have made it into the next stage (Top 16) of Eurolegue competition. We will continue to take a look at those who did with their respective teams, in our weekly report.
This was a game exactly how Oguz Savas likes it, a lot of body to body bruising. He went head to head with Tau’s stacked frontcourt of Splitter and McDonald producing 20 points and 5 rebounds. Omer Asik also picked up the slack continuing the great consistency he has shown since skipping to Efes earlier in the year. 7 points and 7 rebounds in limited minutes will get the job done.
Nikola Pekovic got 7 points and 6 rebounds but was again reduced in his production and playing time by severe foul trouble. It was against the top team of Panathinaikos, so it happens when u match up with the best.
Also Novica Velickovic got into foul trouble that cost him his usual extensive playing time, lowering his production 5 points and 4 boards. The game was close till the end and it is scary to think of a more experienced frontcourt for Partizan in the future.
Milos Teodosic started, and received a lot of minutes but was not as effective as usual with just 5 points and 3 boards.
Omri Casspi is the riser of the week as he went perfect on his shots for 6 points in 12 minutes of action.
Emir Preldzic converted 2 three pointers and had some production showing his versatility with 3 boards and 3 dimes.
Had Uros Tripkovic and Milenko Tepic brought their shooting touch to this game, maybe we would have been witness to an upset. Partizan lost to heavy favorite Pana by a mere 2 points and the youngsters went a combined. 2/10 from the field and 3 /10 from threepointland, you cant upset a big team like that.
Gasper Vidmar was of more use to Efes as he had at least the body to bang with Splitter. He had 9 points but couldn’t get a single rebound in 20 minutes of action so a kind of mixed result.
It’s nice to see Martynas Gecevicius out there even at this late stage of the competition, he has fit into his role and gets the chance in every game. He is a spot up shooter and connected for one finishing with 3 points.
Semih Erden took the night off in Istanbul’s big loss to Tau, he had just 1 point and no rebound in just 10 minutes. Consistency seems to be his biggest achilles.
Sergio Llull was without production in 3 minutes, while Pablo Aguilar drew another DNP.
Mantas Kalnietis should call this season a day. He had 0 points and no production to go along again.
Anatoly Kashirov and Alexey Shved warmed the bench this week for CSKA. This team is so stacked, its hard to imagine any PT in their future for the rest of the season.
Albert Moncasi seems to be the odd man out as we progress further on in the competition, again a DNP-CD.
Paulao Prestes drew another DNP.
Baris Hersek as he has done all season DNP.
